Mali Sahi slums reduce to ashes

Bhubaneswar,October25 ( Odisha.in ) A major portion of Mali Sahi slums located in Kharavela Nagar of Bhubaneswar has been reduced to ashed on the early hours of Thursday rendering hundreds of families homeless.

Most of the families were Bengali Muslims having rag-picking as the principal avocation.

According to a victim, though the original source of the fire has so far not been ascertained probably the fire broke out from a mosquito repellent which was placed in the house near a heap of polythene.

Since most of the families had preserved huge bundles of polythene, rags, papers etc.the fire spread within no time. Two gas calenders kept in two jhuggies also caughtfire and exploded , spreading the fire all over.

Within no time the entire cluster of jhuggies were reduced to sashes. It happened so quickly that no one was able to salvage anything.

However the red-light area adjacent to the slums has not been affected by the fire.

In the meanwhile Bhubaneswar municipality has arranged cooked food as relief for the affected families.